Whitman receives $340,000 grant from Keck Foundation
WALLA WALLA, Wash.-The W.M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles, California, has awarded Whitman College a $340,000 grant to incorporate a post-genomic, integrative biology perspective into the life sciences at the college.
The W.M. Keck Foundation is one of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations. Established in 1954 by the late William Myron Keck, founder of The Superior Oil Company, the Foundation's grant making is focused primarily on the areas of medical research, science, and engineering.
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| Assistant professor Dan Vernon and seniors Kerry Cutler and Dan Cushing with Arabidopsis plants |
"We are grateful and pleased that the Keck Foundation has awarded us this generous grant," said Whitman College President Tom Cronin. "Whitman is committed to providing the highest quality facilities and educational experiences possible for students. To this end, the college recently embarked on a major capital project of more than $20 million to construct a new 36,000 square-foot science building and to renovate the existing 77,000 square foot building."
"This grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation will enable Whitman to bring the new tools and techniques of post-genomic, integrative biology into our curriculum through coursework, laboratory experiences, student/faculty research projects, state of the art scientific equipment and lab technical support," added Pat Keef, dean of faculty.
Dan Vernon, associate professor of biology and the primary science writer on the grant proposal, said he was pleasantly surprised when he received approval of the grant. He's grateful that the Keck Foundation recognized the merit of Whitman's proposal even in tough economic times. "Without the computers and imaging equipment this grant will provide, students wouldn't be introduced to what they'll soon encounter in the real world." The decoding of plant and animal genomes has provided an explosion of raw data for biologists, said Vernon, but this is just a first step-the start rather than the finish. "Many of the big questions in biology in the next couple of decades will focus on genomes and gene function, and we're updating our curriculum to meet the challenges of teaching our students this post-genomic biology."
Assistant professor of biology Ginger Withers, who recently won a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER AWARD to help her develop new teaching approaches while actively maintaining her research, said her work will benefit greatly from the Keck Foundation's award. Keck funds will allow her to put together four student research stations that will include adaptors to attach cameras to microscopes, digital cameras (some capable of video streams) and accompanying computers. Last semester when she and fellow assistant professor Chris Wallace created a time-lapse movie of a living cell, they resorted to using a television, VCR, video camera and hair dryer to create a movie of a moment in the life of a cell. "It was great-but really hard to do," says Withers. "It's so much easier in the lab when you have the right equipment."
Now that researchers can sequence entire genomes, adds Withers, it is vital to train new scientists to place this genetic data in the context of the living system. Withers, whose cutting-edge research on dendrite growth in brain cells could help advance our understanding of neurological disorders such as mental retardation, Parkinson's disease, and learning disabilities, agrees that the field of life sciences is changing rapidly. "We need to train our students to work across the border of traditional scientific disciplines. Integrative, interdisciplinary thinking is what will be required to solve the next generation of scientific problems."
Email: parishlj@whitman.edu
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